


the dragon and the eagle

by sansasyennefer



Category: game of thrones
Genre: Aegons Conquest, Dragons, F/F, Fire and Blood, Lesbian, Lesbian Relationships, Lesbians protecting Lesbians, Mentions of Aegon, No Lesbians Die, No sex???, Targaryen, Visenya - Freeform, arryn - Freeform, sharra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-22 15:09:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22218007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sansasyennefer/pseuds/sansasyennefer
Summary: After the death of Rhaenys Targaryen above the Hellholt, Visenya Targaryen is abandoned by a despondent Aegon I, and becomes consumed with grief.But when assassins breach the Eyrie for the first time in hundreds of years, Visenya rides for the Vale, sworn not to lose another. And as Sharra Arryn, the wilful Flower of the Mountain, comforts Visenya in her grief, Visenya must confront both sides of her - the grief for her sister, and a love unlike anything she has ever felt before.
Relationships: Sharra Arryn & Visenya Targaryen
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [visharra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/visharra/gifts).



> hi! i realise there isnt much visharra content on archive of our own, and after twitter user @cindersansa expressed her thirst for the good lesbian shit, i decided i’d have a crack at it myself! the chapters will alternate between sharra and visenya, and it’ll probably be slowburn??? maybe???? maybe they’ll move in after three days because lesbian?? who knows???

Rhaenys Targaryen dies alone, in a land of silken dunes and towers of mist that twine and retwine, with fear in her gut and fire in her heart. Rhaenys Targaryen dies, and Aegon and Visenya Targaryen reduce Dorne to smoldering ash. For days the deserts of Dorne gleam with fire, a hellish hue that devours all it comes across, until the dragonriders of Valyria have spent their rage.

And then Aegon and Visenya had returned to King’s Landing. Until Aegon, despondent with grief, banished Visenya to Dragonstone. She knew she would have to return to Dragonstone - it was her home, but Aegon had not even allowed her a night at King’s Landing. It was a spiteful and terrible thing, exiling her to a place where she had no-one to console her.

Visenya lay awake late, while lucid figures dance and call from the street below, but even the voices of strangers are distant - seperate, as if succumbing to her anguish has exiled her to a seperate world.

She shifted onto her back, rings of violent, dim and stinging with tears, gazing upwards at the canopy of silk. Visenya had spent hours trying to sleep, but somehow sleep offers worse then this terrible waking sorrow. Dreams of phantoms, bound by mist, that stalk across burning fields - with no shape, until she reaches towards them and Rhaenys appears, a dead woman walking. Dark Sister, shattering like ice. Figures in the night. The corpse of a dragon, stuffed with quarrels, bleeding and cold. 

Visenya was so tired, but she could not sleep, so she slipped from her bed, merely a shade. A sconce burned low, but even with the small guttering flame it repulsed her. She thought of the massacre of the Dornish - fields and deserts set alight for no purpose other than to burn, men and children rushing to rivers, screaming out from their prisons of blazing, infernal fire. Fire did not kill her sister, and it is unnatural for a Targaryen to fear fire. Even she had once enjoyed holding her hand over fire, and Aegon had once proclaimed the Red Keep would never chill until the sun set. But when she stole a flagon of warm water from the sill of her high window to snuff the fire, cold fear washed over her, and fear spoiled her grip. The flagon fell to the floor, and rivulets ran onto the stone floor.

Visenya cursed, and steadied herself on the sill. She did not know what was becoming of her, she thought, and it seems all the hope and joy she once had is falling for through her hands like grains of sand. She can not even grasp a smile, or a sweet dream of summer. For a long terrible moment the daughter of the dragon sinks to the hard stone, and thinks this is all her life will be. Days of grief and memories of better days, marred with what has become of those she loves.

Even then she cannot cry. Dragons do not shed tears. Queens do not cry. So she tightly clasps the bedpost and rises to her feet, shivering. The sea licked gently against shore, and drunken revellers dance like spectres in the streets, anchored only by the sobering night and the brackish air of Dragonstone, bracing and crisp.

She does not know what the future holds, she thinks, and it terrifies her. She has never known the future, truthfully, but it feels as if the gods have flipped their coins, decided their fates.

Rhaenys’ coin landed amongst the dunes of Dorne. Aegon’s is soaked with blood. But Visenya’s fate is beyond her reach, the coin is beyond her reach. She does know what to make of it. There is hope it, as there is hope in everything, so she knows she must steel herself against this despair. 

But she does not know how.

-

In the early dawn, Visenya paced the corridors of Dragonstone, having donned a dress of dark green and a black hooded cloak when the lonely night became to much to bear. She is lost, and she cannot find her way. 

Tired of the imposing sharp shadows of Dragonstone, Visenya slips away. She encounters several watchmen, but none challenge her - she may be mourning, but her grief was of the Dragon. She was somehow glad to know that even when she was bleary eyed with grief, her austere, vengeful beauty was enough to command respect. She would always have that.

Dragonstone is a barren place, spotted with inns and taverns marred with the stench of ale. Drunks stagger aimlessly, towards homes and ships. The docks provide a sharp contrast to what lies beyond the shore. Ships are anchored port to starboard, and cast long wavering shadows across the sand. 

Visenya watches the tide rise and break against the shore again and again, the cycle mesmering. Absently her hands go to the lace of her cloak, and within seconds she shrugged out of it. It falls into a heap and the Targaryen strides towards the water. She has not swum for years, but she will not swim. She only wants to feel the water, feel the rocky shore fade away - to silt and then to the bluish abyss, infinite and treacherous.

The tide comes quickly, and Visenya stands, wet to her ankles, the hem of her dress sopping. Someone shouts vaguely to her, a world away, but Visenya only wades deeper. In some delirium, a manic fire set alight by her grief, she wonders if she can swim to Dorne, but then the shouting grows louder.

Sharply, she turns away from the sea to face the source of the cacophony. She thinks at first he is some common drunkard, running wildly towards her, and her hand goes to Dark Sister at her hip. She draws it and slashes at the air, warning the man. “My queen. I bring news, only a few days old.”

She thinks that it is some cruel and godly jest, that he will tell her of the death of her sister, that somehow he has not heard that Aegon and Visenya Targaryen rode to Dorne and left it a smoking wreck. “What news do you bear? Has another Targaryen fallen from the sky? Aenys or Aegon?” She said, her voice strained.

“As I have heard it, m’lady, the good king Aegon and his issue, Aenys, are safe at King’s Landing. No, I bear news of the Vale. The Eyrie was breached by assassins, who thought to murder Lady Sharra Arryn and Lord Ronnel. They were overpowered by The Knights of The Vale, of course, but the next day, m’lady, Lady Arryn’s men visited the docks and spoke with my good captain. They offered us gold, and ordered us to conduct her children, Jonos and Ronnel, to White Harbour.”

Something deep stirred inside her. All her grief seem to burn away, and rage burst up like a geyser. Not like she had left for Rhaenys, a rage felt for a sister, love forged from family. Lady Sharra was not family, but Visenya felt something deeper for her, something she had never felt before. She remembered Sharra Arryn vividly, a flower in the mist. Visenya Targaryen had gone expecting to treat with some wizened knight or council, expecting war from the mounted defense of the Bloody Gate. But she had found instead a mother, defending her child. She had been beautiful, with eyes that shone with cunning. And she had spared Visenya Targaryen from a horrible battle, spared her from murdering innocent men and hearing them dying in gouts of flame. The lady had handed Visenya three crowns and had bowed like a proper lady, and had risen Warden of the East. Sharra had spoken to Visenya afterwards, and Visenya had wanted to spend longer with this woman - a woman who had struck some deep chord within her, awoken a deeper sense, some gilded fragment of her soul. And to think someone had tried to hurt her...

“Go to Dragonstone, tell them on the orders of Visenya Targaryen. Muster whatever your ship can hold, and sail for the Vale.” She ordered, her voice cold and steely. She gathered the sopping hem of the dress in her hands and began up the slope.

“And what of you, m’lady?” Cried the sailor, striding alongside her.  
“I am a Targaryen, good sir. I am of Valyria, perhaps more so even then the king, or my good sister. I have no need of ships.”  
With that, the sailor left her, and Visenya closed her eyes. She could hear voices from a tavern, and the great sound of the yawning sea, but she could hear beyond that. A great roar, and the flapping of leathery wings. She called into the world, and Vhagar answered. He materalised on the edge of the world, but soon he had grown close, and even from the shore. It was no secret that Targaryen could call to their dragons, that they had some deeper bond, but even when she had spoken to Rhaenys and Aegon they had not felt it as strongly as she did.

Vhagar was a great thing, though smaller then Balerion and Meraxes. Its scales were a great bronze, and its eyes were a blazing red, but even as he landed upon the shore, his claws spraying great ribbons of sand into the air, Visenya could tell her mount was injured. A great red gash streaked his neck, and when Visenya put her hand against it, the dragon whimpered.

“I am sorry, truly. You should not have suffered so I could enact vengeance. I will find you a Maester and salve, but you cannot stray far from the Vale of Arryn, Vhagar. I may need you. But now we don’t ride to war. Do you remember when they anointed Aegon. He promise that we would be the shields of our people. Now we must fulfil our promise. We must protect them. We must protect her.” She said mournfully, and mounted the beast. He rose and rose, until the only thing higher was the sleeping stars and tendrils of cloud. It was cloud, but as Vhagar carried Visenya eastward, it all faded away, and she found herself repeating the same thing she had told her mount.

_We must protect her._

-

It takes hours to reach the Vale, great pillars of jagged rock, like teeth of some great beast rising to swallow the Eyrie. Visenya urges Vhagar lower, invigorated by the flight, until he touches down in the same courtyard she arrived in all those years ago. It is the same, down to the same battlement. The watchmen stand where they once stood, though they are all too young to be the same that threatened her life all those years ago, when she treated with Sharra Arryn.

Even the thought of the woman causes her to catch her breath, and the concern weighs heavier then ever. She runs to the latest guard, straining to speak as Vhagar flapped his great wings and rose higher and higher, until he was merely a dark streak, gliding like a kite until he was obscured by clouds. “Where is she, Lady Sharra? Is she well?”

“She is well, my queen.” The guard said in a clipped town, kneeling and rising when she nodded to allow his ascent.  
“Take me to her.” Visenya ordered coldly. The guard nodded nervously and turned on his heels, taking long strides to match Visenya’s pace. The number of guards had clearly been raised, she noted, but guards would not do much against skilled assassins. The thought unnerved her, but she was reassured that The Knights of The Vale would lay down their lives for their lady.

In time, they entered a set of apartments in the north of the castle. Visenya forged forward, but she faltered before a great set of wooden doors. Would Sharra recognise her? Would she truly want her there?

“My lady, are you well?” Said the guard. Visenya swallowed, suppressing her fears. It did not matter how Sharra felt. Visenya would keep her safe, at whatever cost necessary.

The guards pushed upon the great doors, and Visenya swept into the room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the arryn has been breached, and sharra is still grappling with the truth that her home has been endangered by something she cannot contend with, and the arrival of visenya targaryen provides some much needed clarity in this mad world

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry its late! thanks for reading the last chapter! special thanks to amsie for her continued support

The world is a darker place now.” Sharra said, to her maester, a lad of early thirties. He was younger than most of the maesters - it was said younger men would have been to better use to other boys, like Ronnel and Jonos. Sharra was sure Maester Tryant had good intentions, but it did not do a widowed lady good to be followed by a boy like Tryant - any good he did was undone was rumours of them.

She did not know how she had fooled them for so long - the lords and the ladies, even her lord husband, but she had managed to feign love where there was only nothing. Once again her thoughts turned to Visenya Targaryen - whether the woman had received the message she had sent. Even if she had, would she join Lady Sharra in defending The Eyrie, the home of the Vale? Sharra felt so weary, so tired of holding the burden of the palace in the mountains.

“What do you mean, Lady Arryn?” Ignorant child, she thought, turning from the window, stupid, naïve child.  
“A Targaryen has been killed, throwing this world into spinning disarray, and The Vale was breached. I have known always of assassins. They have come even for me before, these daggers in the night. But for them to come for my children, my own blood? It is a mother’s greatest fear that she cannot protect her children. Now I cannot even touch them again.”  
“It is like that the good lords Ronnel and Jonos will be able to return within the fortnight. It was sure to be some isolated incident - some minor lord with upward ambitions, who thought to try his hand at seizing might of our great house, I imagine.”

“It isn’t your might, Tryant, and you would do well to remember that. It isn’t even mine.” There was sorrow in her voice, surely enough. She had suffered glimpses of weakness all her life - she had been born a woman after all, resigned to a life of inferior rule. But still she had crafted something delicate, in her kingdom in the mountains. A delicate peace. And all in one night, the peace had been broken and the safety of her children compromised.  
“Yes, my lady. But still, all will be well.”  
“You don’t know that, Tyrant, any less more I do. This was clearly not some half-plotted attempt to seize power, a mockery of war. A man in my apartment, a man in both my son’s chambers, a man in yours, and some half-drunk man who’d wasted away the night slashing tankards of Arbor Wine. Do you how much of a dent it will put in our coffers, having to replace all that Arbor and summer wine?”

“Do not worry yourself. You have been through a terrible ordeal, as a woman and as a mother. I am still perplexed how you survived. It must be a blessing, The Mother guiding you and your sons safely through the treachery. Now, Lady Sharra, I must redress the cut. It is deep enough that infection will be serious.”  
So Sharra sat beside Tryant on the bed, delicately removing the bandage as if it was some limp, dead thing. The maester took it and turned it over, before he set it beside him. “Wait here, Lady Arryn, I will be back in a moment with the dressing.” Sharra nodded her assent and the maester left her. She sat for a few moments, but the silence quickly bored her. There was fear in it now, a terrible aloneless that made her think of darker times, dreams of war. she steadied herself on the poster of the bed and rose, pacing the room. Tryant would be back soon. The assassins would not. Her sons had reached White Harbour safely, fostered with the Manderlys. The daggers in the night had not. She whispered it to herself, like a secret prayer. We survived. 

There were things to be glad of - House Arryn could have fallen, and the fate of the Eyrie would be left to the Royces, a terrible house of wolves – wolves dressed in the skins of sheep. At least House Stark, a house she decidedly hated, even more so after her betrothal and marriage to Torrhen Stark. Sharra would always be eternally glad that the gods had been god and blessed her with two good Arryn boys, hair like black silk and piercing eyes that cast great nets into the world and gleamed with every slip of sun and burned with gleeful passion, and unblemished skin, fair and beautiful. Her husband had been handsome enough, but he had always the grizzled, rough beauty of lordly men. If he had gotten his way, Jonos and Ronnel would have been fostered elsewhere, but Sharra would not allow it. The Vale was their home, and Arryn did not bode well when they were not living in the Eyrie. The harshness of Aegon Targaryen’s Westeros did not seem to agree with them.

A loud groaning rung out like bells as the great wooden doors parted like the lips of lover, and Sharra turned to find herself facing Visenya Targaryen. Suddenly a great sense of clarity came over Sharra Arryn, as if some great machination of the gods had revealed itself to her. A subtle fire roared within her, stoked by the appearance of the Targaryen Queen, and The Lady of the Vale trembled with all the terror and rage that rose within her.  
“My lady.” Said the Dragon, crossing the room.  
“My queen.” Said the eagle, moving tenderly across to meet her, dazed by the woman before her. They embraced for a long moment, and in the moment the world faded away like mist before them, and beneath Visenya’s firm touch kingdoms were nothing but figures in the snow, The Arryn and The Targaryen great giants that could have swept away the world. And then the women, twined like threads of gold, broke from their embrace, and the great walls of stone and hills of soil and grass rose up around them and the giants shrunk to only women, alone and desperate, wounded by the labours of the world. 

“I came, my lady, as soon as I could. I regret that I did not come to you sooner. That I did not leave you later.” Said Visenya, her violent eyes burning with hot tears.  
“You are here now, Visenya. It is all that matters.” Sharra said, and gestured with a sweeping hand to two chairs and a table, all make of oak, set by the window. As the Targaryen took a seat, gazing absently in the view from Lady Sharra’s apartments – great rolling hills and long plateaus of stone and cliffs of grey rock, rippled with rushing rivers and speckled with lush green forests that rose like spears from the soil, a ray of sun caught against its subject, a chiselled statue, and Sharra truly studied the woman, Queen of Westeros, who had brought so much of Sharra’s world to its knees. Visenya’s eyes, bright rings of twin purple, turned towards the door, and Sharra followed her gaze, only find Maester Tryant hovering in the doorway, holding a long, sopping bandage, slick with some balm or herb that the young maester had conjured to soothe Sharra’s pain. The Arryn rose, and offered her hand to Tryant. The wound was a shallow gash along the woman’s hand, and she winced as the maester dressed the wound. “You should have wrung it better, Tryant. Now I will hardly be able to put my hand to my dress if I do not wish to soak it, but it is no matter.” Sharra said, and although she was greatly frustrated, she knew there would be no use in scolding the master. Men who thought they knew all they should were slow to learn. Sharra spared herself another glance at Visenya Targaryen and wondered what she would do. At least Sharra was anchored to this world, the jagged Mountains and the Vale. But Visenya was different somehow. It was no secret that Aegon had been a spiteful and cruel king, and had neglected the elder Targaryen, though he was bound to her by marriage… true, Dragonstone was her home, but it was Aegon’s domain. It could be repurposed by the Dragon King at any moment, and was fresh with the scarlet dew of grief. All that world was, Sharra supposed – the Dragon had three heads and three Targaryens had conquered Westeros. The welded kingdoms had been brought together beneath Rhaenys as much as Visenya and Aegon. But the Vale – the Vale was a sculpture of Visenya’s hand, chiselled by the eldest Targaryen. This was Visenya’s world as much as Sharra’s. Sharra’s allegiance was to Visenya, most of all. Targaryen, Baratheon, Stark, Arryn… they were mere words when Sharra thought of Visenya. It was her, this strange and beautiful woman, who had brought Sharra into the world. Without Visenya, the Vale would be nothing more then a smoking wreck, another Dorne, another Harrenhal. Nothing. She had saved them all.

Then the maester finished, and Sharra went over towards Visenya and threw open the high window, untying the dressing, wringing it, and retying the bandage tighter. “You should leave the bandage alone, my lady. I was trained at Oldtown. I can dress a wound.” Tryant chuckled, sketching a low bow at Visenya before rising and setting the door shut behind him. “I was a mother, Tryant. I have been dressing wounds for years.” She smiled sweetly, the smiling lines of her fair skin drawing upwards like the wings of a dove, and gently seating herself beside the Targaryen queen. “I am sure motherhood makes maesters of women, Lady Sharra.” “It is just as well, Maester, because it seems motherhood is the closest Oldtown will ever allow women to becoming maesters.” Visenya said sullenly, with a tone so cold that even Tryant, who was rumoured to of fended off two assassins with only a dagger, was forced to avert his gaze to the stone floor. “My Lady. I am sorry for your loss.” “Don’t call it my loss. This loss – this gaping wound that has cleft Westeros is hardly my own. We share the burden equally. The Seven are selfish, and so is the glorious King Aegon. They took her from me, and Aegon claimed it as his own grief. He will never let me grieve. After these years he will not even allow me that.” Visenya cried. “Maester, please escort Visenya to Jonos’ apartments. They will be empty until the lady decides it is safe until Jonos and Ronnel return from White Harbour, and they should be perfectly adequate. Make sure any requests of Lady Visenya’s are seen to. She is a guest in this house. And do not worry posting guards outside her chambers, unless our queen wishes. I am not sure we have any guards who could even hold their own against Lady Visenya when she wields Dark Sister, much less defend her.” Sharra said curtly, getting up from her chair and bowing stiffly to Visenya.

“What of the matters I was sent to attend to?” Asked Visenya, bewildered. “They can wait till tomorrow. A corpse is being held for your inspection, along with the daggers. Even if they attack, they do not know Jonos and Ronnel are absent. The birds have all flown the nest, and if they come stalking for Arryn lords, they will be no match for Visenya Targaryen.” With that, Visenya and Sharra exchanged courtesies, as they had all those years before, and shared sweet smiles, until Visenya departed with the maester.

Lady Sharra grimaced, absently fingering the ring on her wedding finger. She had worn the silver band that her husband had given to her once, but he was long dead, and the marriage between Sharra Arryn and the King who had taken her as his husband was no matter. He had done his part. His titles – King of the Mountain and the Vale – had faded away like dust on a winter wind, and the Targaryen conquest had even taken his only legacy, the Falcon Crown. The ring was light sapphire, the shade of House Arryn, and the silver that touched her skin was carved with her house’s words, High as Honour. Her house was the last thing that bound her to the world. Her sons had left, and her regency had been cleft by the Targaryen conquest, and Sharra had lived her life believing that House Arryn was all she had. But now that she was no longer the Lady of the Vale, much less Regent of the Kingdom, she was truly free. The possibilities of the world had blossomed like flowers in spring, and the middle of it all was Visenya Targaryen.


End file.
